Education and International Development Working Paper 17

A Critical Theoretical Perspective on Education and Social

Change in Bolivia: A Contested Alternative Pedagogy

An Introduction to Bolivia’s Envisaged “Politics of Change”

Mieke T.A. Lopes Cardozo

IS Academie EID/Amidst

University of Amsterdam

mlopescardozo@fmg.uva.nl

2013

A version of this book chapter is forthcoming in: Education and Social Change

in Latin America, Sara C. Motta and Mike Cole (eds), Palgrave, Series:

Marxism and Education.

Chapter 5

A Critical Theoretical Perspective on Education and Social Change in Bolivia: A Contested Alternative

Pedagogy

Mieke T.A. Lopes Cardozo

An Introduction to Bolivia’s Envisaged “Politics of Change”

1

You have to be committed to study, to become the light and hope that Bolivia needs

for its development.

President Morales in an address to secondary school students in Santa Cruz

(Ministerio de Educacion de Bolivia, 2011)

In Bolivia, education is seen by many as a promising way out of a life in poverty and

marginalization. Similarly, hope is often mentioned in relation to processes of social change,

as the epigraph reveals. This education-hope-change nexus becomes particularly relevant in

highly unequal societies, such as Bolivia, where historically marginalized groups struggle

with great anticipation for a better future. With a “politics of change,” the new Bolivian

government endeavors—in any case discursively—a restructuring of the economy, politics

and society, with education being perceived as a mayor vehicle for such transformations.

Bolivia, situated right in the heart of South America, is a country of wide diversity,

contrasts and struggles. Since 2006, the first majority-elected and self-identified indigenous

president Evo Morales has given Bolivia a new face. Even though Bolivia is experiencing a

period of economic growth in a global context of economic decline (World Bank, 2009), it

remains one of the most unequal and poorest countries in the Latin American continent. In

the apt words of Kohl and Bresnahan (2010, p. 5), the achievements of the Morales

government are thus far much like beauty in the eye of the beholder. Huge inequalities,

between rich and poor, between lowland and highland Bolivia and between different ethnic-

cultural groups continue to lead to social tensions and conflicts (Latinobarómetro, 2007;

Lopes Cardozo, 2009).

Social transformation in Bolivia is—at least ideologically—high on the political

agenda and education is seen as a core remedy. A Bolivian ministry official explained in an

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interview how “society will not change if we do not change education.” This comment

provides a strong argument for the focus of this essay: if we want to understand processes of

social transformation in Bolivia, education provides an important entry point. Education

policies represent not only the state’s vision on how its population can be best “developed,” it

also defines what type of citizen is envisaged, or how Bolivia aims to deal with its diverse

population and social inequalities.

With this new political push for radical structural societal and educational

transformation, Bolivia is marking an exceptional route toward development that stands in

stark contrast to mainstream (neoliberal inspired) global tendencies and generates an

intriguing area for social science research. This essay aims to shed new light on Bolivian

processes of social transformation through education from a neo-Gramscian theoretical lens,

while also bringing in additional insights from critical pedagogy and Latin American

coloniality debates necessary to understand the specifics of this case. The chapter draws on a

five-year research engagement with Bolivian education and social transformation,

particularly focusing on potentials and obstacles to transformation in an urban and a rural

teacher training institute, or Normales. The Normales are defined here as teacher training

institutes rather than teacher education institutes—bearing in mind the difference between

reproductive forms of institutional “training” and more reflexive and transformational

“education” (see Cole, 2011, p. 1). Data shows that current practices in Bolivia’s Normales

relate more to the banking and reproductive training approach, while the new Reform

discourse envisages a shift toward what could be called “social justice teacher education”

(Lopes Cardozo, 2011).

The research that informs this chapter has been inspired by Roger Dale’s meta-

theoretical research approach that understands education from an interdisciplinary

perspective, and as embedded within a multiscalar context, while acknowledging the

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relevance of alternative knowledges and the importance of historical analysis. From a critical

theoretical perspective, we should look for alternatives beyond the status quo, and explain the

“social contract” for education: what does society give to education, and what is expected in

return? Through what “logic of intervention” does education work? (Dale, 2006; 2010).

Particularly the phenomenon of globalization paints the broader picture in which societal and

educational changes take place in Bolivia and elsewhere. Refraining from seeing

globalization as an “unambiguous and non-negotiable structural constraint” (Hay 2002, p.

164–166), this text positions the case of Bolivia in a wider context of countertendencies to

processes of globalization.

In this chapter, I first explore the processes of sociopolitical transformation in the

Bolivian context from a neo-Gramscian perspective, highlighting particularly the role of

intellectuals and education within those. Second, I turn to discuss how critical pedagogy

debates as well as Latin American coloniality discussions help to understand the rationale

behind Bolivia’s new education reform “Avelino Sinani Elizardo Perez.” As a way of

conclusion and discussion, the chapter reflects on empirical findings relating to the

possibilities and challenges of Bolivia’s quest for a decolonized education system in practice.

Applying (Neo-)Gramscian Thinking to Sociopolitical Change in Bolivia Bolivia’s current “decolonizing politics of change” openly contest neoliberal forms of

globalization. Studying present day political and educational developments in this context of

Bolivian sociopolitical change fits Bieler and Morton’s suggestions for further critical

scholarship to problematize and clarify tactics and strategies of resistance to neoliberalism

(Cox 2002, in Bieler and Morton, 2004, p. 103). So as to understand Bolivia’s present

processes of social transformation, being part of a wider Latin American turn to the Left

(Rodriguez-Garavito et al., 2008), I draw on (neo-)Gramscian thinking on hegemony and

counter-hegemony. Present day processes of social transformation in Bolivia are not just

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about an economic redistribution of wealth and (educational and work) opportunities among

different classes, they are also very much about struggles for cultural recognition and political

representation of large and varying groups that for long have been excluded and

discriminated in Bolivian society. In this essay I will illustrate the usefulness of Gramsci’s

ideas, as he acknowledged the need for both political and cultural struggles of

(counter-)hegemony. Gramsci’s work, which was originally written in the first part of the

twentieth century and largely during his imprisonment under Italian fascist rule, helps to

address the overemphasis on structures, and consequently a neglect of agents and agency, of

traditional Marxist thinking as Wallerstein’s World System Theory (Novelli, 2004, p. 26).

Gramsci’s work acknowledges the relevance of cultural hegemony, and the role of civil

society and cultural institutions—including the education arena—in understanding balances

of power and processes of societal change (Bates, 1975, p. 353; Bieler and Morton, 2004,p.

92; Femia, 1975, p. 30). Educators, in Gramscian thinking, are consequently seen as

important transmitters in gaining political as well as cultural hegemony, or in other cases as

working as an important counter-hegemonic force.

While recognizing the obvious differences in time and geography between the case of

early-twentieth-century Italy under fascist rule, and twenty-first-century Bolivia under

President Morales, Gramscian ideas are still useful to develop an understanding of

contemporary changes and counter-forces in Bolivian society, through the lens of education.

Gramsci writes how human nature is not fixed, it is rather the totality of historically

determined social relations, and therefore the study of politics and social transformation

should be seen as a “developing organism” (Gramsci, 1971, pp. 133–134). Various authors

(for instance, Morton, 1999, pp. 5–6; Harris, 2007, p. 2) have suggested how Gramscian ideas

on hegemony are particularly helpful in understanding the Latin American “strategic sites of

political struggle,” where various forms of resistance to hegemonic structures (but not

5

necessarily states) take place—for instance, in the case of the Mexican Zapatista movement,

or indigenous social movements in the Andes region. Obviously, there is no single theory that

perfectly explains the dynamics, complexities and (lack of) success of processes of social

transformation around the world, and to look for one assumes a reductionist approach to

science (Harris, 2007, p. 23). There is, however, a need for understanding the “democratic

dialectic,” which helps us to grasp the dynamic interconnection between the state, civil

society and the market in processes of social change, particularly in cases such as

contemporary Bolivia and Venezuela (Harris, 2007). Exploring this relationship is also

especially important for understanding education, and particularly the work of teachers

(Robertson, 2000). The education sector in Bolivia works and interrelates with all these

terrains, and forms part of this democratic dialectic. I argue for the relevance of applying

Gramscian thinking on hegemony and counter-hegemony to explain the complexities of the

struggle for state power alongside cultural hegemony through the project of decolonization of

education in Bolivia, with a particular focus on teachers’ pre-service education, as one of the

main starting points for educational transformations.

In Gramsci’s theoretical writings, hegemony can be understood as a form of social

control, of an ideological (and often cultural) domination of one social group over

“subordinated” others (Martin, 1997, p. 38). “It means political leadership based on the

consent of the led, a consent which is secured by the diffusion and popularization of the

world view of the ruling class” (Bates, 1975, p. 352). Educational institutions can be

perceived as part of this hegemony, since “intellectual and moral leadership” is exercised

through the “ensemble of educational, religious and associational” institutions of civil

society” (Femia, 1975, p. 30). Hegemonic systems are constantly contested by opposition

parties within the government, social movements and intellectuals. Therefore, capitalist states

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apply varying combinations of consent and coercion to maintain the hegemony (Crehan,

2002, p. 97; Harris, 2007, p. 2; Kohl, 2006, p. 309).

A Gramscian conceptualization of the state does not limit itself to the “government of

functionaries” or the “political society” that exercises “direct dominion,” through the “public

spheres” of governmental institutions, political parties and the military. Gramsci’s notion of

the state is inclusive of the realm of civil society, including the “private sphere” of education,

religion and media, that fashion social and political consciousness (Bates, 1975, p. 353;

Bieler and Morton, 2004, p. 92). Anderson (in Martin, 1997, and in Kohl, 2006), one of the

main critics of Gramsci’s work, stated how Gramsci gave the notion of hegemony various

and even contradictory meanings, and that we should perceive hegemony as a multiple

concept that incorporates both civil society and state hegemonic strategies. This critique is,

for instance, addressed in Jessop’s (2005; 2007) Strategic Relational Approach (SRA) which

employs a broad perception of “the state.”

“The challenge for any revolutionary movement is to move from protest to power”

(Harris, 2007, p. 3). According to Gramsci, popular social forces need to build counter-

hegemonic institutions that challenge capitalism and occupy autonomous social and political

space. This battle over politics, culture and ideology is what he called “a war of position,” in

which a principal condition for winning power is to exercise leadership within civil society.

Following a “politics of protest” or “direct democracy,” the popular masses, movements and

unions became a strong force within Bolivian politics at the start of the twenty-first century

(e.g., see Brienen, 2002; Domingo, 2005; Gamboa Rocabado, 2009). In Bolivia, the so-called

Water Wars in Cochabamba in 2000 through their successful mass mobilization and victory

of social movements created counter-consciousness to neoliberal hegemony, giving rise to

further battles over the recovery of gas resources and the extension of democracy. This

illustrates a crucial aspect of Gramsci’s “war of position,” since a new level of confidence

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and self-awareness stimulated people to organize and become agents of change (Harris, 2007,

p. 11). Besides this “war of position,” Gramsci developed the notion of a “war of

manoeuvre,” defined as “a frontal or insurrectional attack against the state or a period of

intensive and active struggle, such as strikes and mass protest” (p. 3). Before taking

democratic power the political party MAS of Evo Morales was employing a war of

maneuver, with its massive demonstrations, and a war of position, becoming a leading social

movement that eventually won the elections. In Gramscian language, the Water and Gas wars

were a war of maneuver with the various represented sectors creating a new historic bloc of

actors (Harris, 2007, p. 13). Gramsci saw these notions of position and maneuver as dialectic

and fluid, rather than static and unidirectional.

Creating a counter-hegemonic culture, as is attempted by the current Bolivian

government, is a long and conflictive process. These events in Bolivia at the beginning of the

twenty-first century can be seen as part of a “new historic moment with resonance beyond its

borders” in which opportunities have opened for marginalized and especially indigenous

groups to take a vital role in the formation of the agenda, which is concerned with a politics

of recognition as well as a politics of redistribution (McNeish, 2007, p. 889). Viewed from a

neo-Gramscian perspective, the Bolivian state can be perceived as a site of contestation and a

“strategic terrain” upon which both Left and Right political actors and wider civil society

strive for their causes. A sense of mistrust in the state is deeply rooted in historical struggles

between Bolivian governments and popular movements (Brienen, 2002; Dangl, 2007; 2010;

Domingo, 2005; Salman, 2006), and remains an important dimension of social and political

tensions.

Morales’ political and now governing party Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS—

movement toward socialism) has retained close ties with its social movement base, creating

rather blurred boundaries between the party and social movements as they “at times work for,

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with and against each other” (Dangl, 2010, pp. 16, 19). The relationship between the social

movements and the current government is “a two-way street,” since social movements goals

are largely supported and taken up by this government, while the MAS receives support for

passing legislation and policies through (sometimes even MAS-funded) mass demonstrations

(Dangl, 2010, p. 22). Yet, in spite of Morales’ background as a social movement leader of the

coca growers union before becoming president, he cannot count on absolute support from all

social movements. Several trade unions, neighborhood movements (especially in El Alto) and

landless movements protested from the beginning against certain appointments within the

Morales cabinet. Zibechi warns of the “dangers of seduction by the state,” as he emphasizes

how the new Bolivian government can be “the bearer and voice of change,” yet it should not

disempower social movements in their key roles (Zibechi, 2010, p. 7). Based on empirical

findings in the Bolivian education sector, the boundaries between “political society” and

“civil society” are rather fluid, and the government is also internally struggling to create a

cohesive strategy, since social movements leaders have now become officials within

governmental institutions and work next to an older generation of policy makers, in some

cases leading to internal tensions.

Furthermore, the government is confronted with serious popular resistance to the new

“politics of change” and a decolonizing education reform. The large-scale social movement

protests in (August-October) 2011 against the creation of a new highway through the Tipnis

natural reserve and indigenous territory showed an ongoing power of popular protest, as the

Morales government saw itself forced to denounce this project. Several indigenous

movements continue to hold the new government accountable, but now to follow the newly

created constitution, as in the case of the highway through the Tipnis reserve, the government

seemed to undermine its own legal regulations that should protect indigenous territory as well

as “la Pacha Mama” (Mother Earth). These events show a continuing dissatisfaction of parts

9

of the Bolivian population with the governments’ political actions, including Morales’ voters.

There is a sense that promises of change and development are not being met. This might be

partly explained by the analysis of Webber (2011) in his recent critical review of the first

years of administration of the Morales government, where he illustrates how the new political

approach of the Morales government shows several continuities with the inherited neoliberal

model. Continuing inequalities and poverty levels in the country can be viewed as the effects

of a “reconstituted neoliberalism,” as Webber calls it. While certainly convincing with regard

to an economic and redistributive approach toward social justice (Fraser, 2005), this

perspective does not however fully take into account the discursive shift of Bolivia’s new

education reform, which incorporates elements of cultural recognition and political

representation.

Bolivia’s current political situation, in which the Morales government is struggling to

install a counter-hegemonic project after a long history of elite domination, can be connected

to Gramsci’s notion of an “organic crisis of the state.” Gramsci, in his Prison Notebooks,

described the organic crisis as a moment of an incomplete transition due to unprepared

political forces, when “the old is dying and the new cannot be born” (Gramsci 1975, in

Martin, 1997, p. 47). In Bolivia, an organic crisis of the state can be interpreted, in my view,

in two ways. The neoliberal governments that ruled the country until Morales experienced an

organic crisis of their hegemonic regime, when social movements through mass

demonstrations enforced an ending of their reign in the first few years of the twenty-first

century (Kohl, 2006). Second, the new, and not yet fully prepared, government, since its

installation in the beginning of 2006 up to the time of writing, faces another version of an

organic crisis, as it struggles to take the as yet “incomplete transition” further on. In addition

to the need to build an alternative economic vision and activity, as Harris (2007, pp. 19, 22)

suggests, I argue it is similarly important to follow Bolivia’s attempts to build a new

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education system that supports this alternative vision and a counter-hegemonic culture. In

order to do so, there is a need to analyze not only the discursive and perhaps revolutionary

shift in educational reforms, but also the incomplete and difficult translation to practice.

Education for Emancipation: Latin American Theories on Coloniality and Knowledges The importance of the cultural and discursive domains of Bolivia’s counter-hegemonic

project are reflected in Latin American debates on coloniality. When writing about Bolivian

politics of education in the context of the new reform for decolonizing education, one cannot

avoid academic discussions related to coloniality theory. “Decolonisation is at the centre of

political debate in Bolivia and the wider Latin American region,” began Felix Patzi, a

Bolivian sociologist and the first Minister of Education in Morales’ government in 2006,

when he opened a seminar on Decolonisation and Education in October 2008. Patzi was

responsible for the very first drafts of the new law for decolonizing education called

“AvelinoSinaniElizardoPerez” (ASEP), which is clearly inspired by regional debates on

coloniality (Ministerio de Educación de Bolivia, 2010). A growing number of academic

debates on education in Latin America deal with issues such as coloniality, critical (border)

thinking and “other,” “alternative,” or “indigenous” knowledges (e.g., see Escobar, 2007;

Grosfoguel, 2007a,b; Mignolo, 2000; Mignolo, 2007a, 2007b; Quijano, 2007; Walsh,

2007a,b). These debates are connected to the global rise of social (including indigenous)

movements, together with wider processes of economic and cultural globalization that opened

up alternative ways of looking at political, theoretical and epistemic approaches (Saavedra,

2007).

From this postcolonial perspective, modern educational systems are considered

conservative, Eurocentric and exclusionary. Debates on the coloniality of societies and

education systems aim to understand and at the same time deconstruct historical structures of

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injustices, and construct an equitable and socially, politically and economically just future.

The interlinked idea of critical border thinking then suggests that an epistemic dialogue

between Eurocentric and other approaches to thinking and knowledges is necessary in order

to understand and deconstruct injustices (Weiler, 2003). The construction of knowledge,

closely linked to educational processes, is central to the coloniality debate. “Knowledge

means power” is also an often-used expression when objectives and goals of education are

debated. The construction of knowledge relates to the “politics of knowledge,” or the control

over and access to a diversity of knowledge cultures (Davies, 2006, p. 1035). Walsh (2007a)

discusses the “geopolitics of knowledge” in the context of Latin America, and argues how in

this continent the production of knowledge has been subject to colonial and imperial design

for a long time. In this continent European thought is dominantly seen as scientific truth,

while other epistemes, such as indigenous and Afro-descendent, have long been considered

subaltern. Walsh (2007b) argues how social movements, and particularly indigenous

movements, have worked on building a cosmology and epistemology based on their own

knowledge yet in dialogue with other knowledges (in plural).

Bolivia’s current education reform is inspired by a progressive tendency in Latin

American pedagogical approaches—also known as popular education (or critical pedagogy in

the United States)—that particularly draw on Freire’s Pedagogy for Liberation and broadly

strive for progressive social changes and more egalitarian social relations (Gottesman, 2010).

These approaches often entail problem-based learning and critical dialogue, the

transformation of teacher–student relations and the incorporation of local or indigenous

knowledges in teaching processes. Both the Bolivian 1994 Reform for Intercultural and

Bilingual Education and the current ASEP reform also build on Latin American social

science and educational work over the past three decades on the concept of

“interculturalism,” while in the new ASEP reform the notion of “intra-culturalism” has been

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added—an understanding and appreciation of one’s own identity in order to engage in

dialogue with “others.”

Bolivia is engaged in political discussions and initiatives with regard to a decolonized

education system based on this epistemic dialogue, and imagining an alternative future

through embracing the critiques brought forward in coloniality debates. To some extent

designed in cooperation between social movement actors, intellectuals and progressive

political leaders, the reform agenda envisions to go against “western,” “European” or

neoliberal ideas that until present dominate many education systems worldwide. The

envisaged result is a transformative restructuring or deconstruction (Fraser, 1995) of the

education system, together with the revaluation of “original” or indigenous knowledges

(Walsh, 2007a, b) and values through education; an approach that shows similarities to the

ideas of Freire when he was involved in decolonizing the education system of Guinea-Bissau

(Freire, 1977). Summarily, the main objectives of educational decolonization in Bolivia are

the opening up of different knowledges toward cultural/linguistic diversity and the creation of

a critical awareness to function as an instrument of liberation of marginalized groups

(Gamboa Rocabado, 2009). Departing from these Latin American debates and ideological

developments around education as a form of emancipation and social change, I now turn to

discuss insights from both Gramsci and Critical Pedagogy on how to further understand the

complex relationship between social change and education.

Educating for Social Transformation: A Gramscian and Critical Pedagogy Perspective Part of the educational function and strategy of social transformation was Gramsci’s idea that

intellectuals should instil a “critical self-consciousness” in the masses, to free them from

dominant hegemonic culture, and to develop an alternative order (Bates, 1975, p. 360; Femia,

1975, p. 35). Intellectuals, according to Gramsci, form a crucial group that can stimulate “the

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passage from organic terrain of economic life to effective political organisation” (Crehan,

2002, p. 95). Baud and Rutten (2004, p. 6) assert how since Gramsci, and even more so since

a cultural turn in social movement studies, a broader conception of “intellectuals” replaced

the old dichotomy between the (educated) intellectuals and the masses. Education

institutions, including schools, universities and teacher education colleges, can function as

places of “creative ideological work and as places where activist intellectual networks may be

formed” (p. 213). This essay employs their comprehensive conceptualization of “popular

intellectuals,” being “persons who—educated or not—aim to understand society in order to

change it, with the interest of popular classes in mind” (p. 2), and particularly their argument

that individual agency—and hence also teachers’ agency—is important in processes of social

change. Bolivia’s attempt to decolonize the education system and teachers’ presumed key

role in this political project could be perceived as such a strategy.

From a Gramscian perspective, education is part of the hegemonic functions of the

state. This provides theoretical justification for posing the question whether and how

educational institutions and actors can and are willing to actually change according to the

ideologies of a new regime in Bolivia under Evo Morales (Lopes Cardozo, 2011). Following

Gramsci, education institutes are sites of conflict and negotiation in which both state and civil

society actions come together and are mediated. Schools are, therefore, neither completely

resistant nor fully cooperative to adopt policy reforms from the Bolivian state (Talavera

Simoni, 2011, p. 19). Teachers, as popular intellectuals, tend to borrow from globalized

ideologies and transform meaning to apply to their local contexts (Baud and Rutten, 2004, pp.

208–209), and often adopt similar strategies of adaptation when it comes to implementing

state reforms.

In addition to this state-to-school level of reform adaptation, Tabulawa (2003, pp. 11–

12), from a “World System” theoretical perspective, discusses the transferring of certain

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education reform models at the international level. Teaching methods such as child-centered

pedagogy and constructivism, according to Tabulawa, have been transferred from core to

periphery states. As a result of these global processes of education policy transfers, the

Bolivian 1994 Reform also strongly drew from the constructivist philosophy of knowledge

production (Delany-Barmann, 2010, p. 183), and is consequently called neoliberal and

foreign-imposed reform by some. This critique fits Tabulawa’s (2003, p. 12) criticism that the

spread of individualistic Western culture through constructivist-based and child-centered

pedagogical reforms are “deemed necessary for an individual to survive in a pluralistic,

democratic capitalist society.” Tabulawa claims this is part of a reproduction process of

capitalism in peripheral states, and indirectly adopted by international aid agencies that see

education as an instrument for political democratization (p. 18). In response to these global

tendencies, Bolivia’s current educational reform undertaking is a search for “Bolivian-

owned” and alternative way of pedagogy, meaning a pluricultural and context-specific

pedagogy that both revalues and incorporates indigenous values and knowledges. Bearing in

mind the premature phase of the decolonization project for education in Bolivia, these

alternative and indigenous pedagogies are a necessary field of research (Lopes Cardozo,

2011; Lopes Cardozo and Strauss, 2013; Semali, 2001; Tabulawa, 2003).

Concluding Reflections: Continuity and Change in Bolivian Education and Society Following a multiscalar “politics of education approach” (Dale, 2000; 2005), and with the

aim to understand the dialectics between education and social transformation, we need to

understand these broader sociopolitical processes that reach beyond the education sector and

the national and state levels. In situations of societal transition, education systems—which

might have contributed to the root causes of conflict—should not just be rebuilt but

transformed (Bush and Saltarelli, 2000, p. 24; Seitz, 2004, p. 56). While transformation forms

15

the main aim of Bolivia’s new ASEP education reform discourse—with a crucial role for the

Normales—it remains to be seen whether these current training institutes will indeed

transform toward a critical and quality pre-service and in-service long-term “teacher

education.”

The actual world in education institutes provides valuable information on how these

policies work in reality. Teacher education institutes are crucial spaces to bring about

educational changes, and ideally to work as a jumpstart for societal change, since this is

where a new generation of future teachers is prepared. In order to understand the implications

of education reforms, as part of wider state policies, we need to understand educators’ roles

and agency in these processes. This chapter argues for the usefulness of Gramscian and

critical pedagogical theoretical insights for starting to understand the ever-changing and

complex strategic context of education—and teachers’ training and work—as dialectically

related to the recent counter-hegemonic “politics of change” of the Bolivian government

under Morales.

Change is a buzz word in Bolivian media, politics and even in the streets and

markets—however real or ideational change might be for the real lives of Bolivians. While

we can observe some real changes taking place since President Morales’ installation in 2006,

such as a new Constitution as of February 2009, there are also signs of a continuing lack of

economic redistribution leading to persisting inequalities and poverty levels, due to the

inheriting of a “reconstituted neoliberal” model (Webber, 2011). Building on the work of

Sahlins, Postero (2007, pp. 12–13) writes how there are aspects of continuity in all processes

of social change. These struggles for social transformation in Bolivia—with indigenous

movements as active agents—are about economic, environmental, democratic and social

justice, and Morales’ “political discourse of change” envisions bringing forward these

struggles for justice. However, this is far from a smooth process, as various processes of

16

conflict continue to exist, and various social groups, including some groups of teachers,

disagree with Morales’ new project (for a discussion of the challenges of the reform

implementation and different actors involved, see Lopes Cardozo 2011; 2012a,b,c). In the

words of Gray Molina, “the core of Bolivian democratic politics is about conflict and

resolving conflict. Room for contestation is a driver for change” (2009). This room for

contestation might create a potential to accelerate progressive changes in a context where

change is—slowly—beginning to take place, opening up new horizons amid a context of

continuing tensions and struggle. Yet, due to the long-term transition phase at present in

Bolivia (Harris, 2007, pp. 13–14) and an impasse in the education sector, we cannot (yet?)

speak of a new installed hegemony.

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